The Spectator magazine has been fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £2,000 to the parents of black teenager Stephen Lawrence after admitting an article it published jeopardised the trial of two men later convicted of his murder.
It admitted a charge relating to an article published on 17 November last year in which columnist Rod Liddle described defendants Gary Dobson and David Norris as "white trash" while the trial was taking place at the Old Bailey.
It also contained prejudicial information about their previous convictions and behaviour which, although previously in the public domain, was subject to reporting restrictions during the trial.
Trial judge Mr Justice Treacy warned jurors not to read the article and referred it to the Attorney General for breaching three specific sections of a contempt order placed on the case.
At Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday the magazine's publisher Spectator 1828 Ltd admitted a charge of breaching a court order made under Section 83 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
Its solicitor Brian Spiro apologised unreservedly to the Lawrence family and everyone involved with the case for what he said had been a "sad sequence of events" that led to the article being published.
District Judge Howard Riddle accepted that the Spectator had not intended to publish prejudicial material but said he had to compensate the Lawrence family for the "additional distress" they had been put through by fearing the trial could collapse.
Awarding £1,000 compensation each to Neville and Doreen Lawrence he said the article had the "potential to undermine justice".
"Apart from the fact that the article breached a court order the reality is that as a result of publication there was at least a brief period during a sensitive part of the trial in which the whole trial process itself was in jeopardy," he said.
"I don't need any imagination whatsoever to see what distress this might have caused, not least to the Lawrence family and friends.
"Fortunately it is clear that the jury did not read the article and the trial was able to come to a fair conclusion.
"But for Mr and Mrs Lawrence and members of their family the prospect of the trial collapsing must have been terrifying."